The Wildlife of Zebras on Scorched Earth
by cggriff
Summary: This is basically the tale that I wanted to be told after the night Olivia played Elliot's hooker in Wildlife. I'm just using other episodes as checkmarks in my story and you can probably tell which ones they are (: I'm not really good at summaries and this is my first story so please just give it a shot! E/O eventually. Rated T for now but probably will change soon. Please review!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey y'all! I haven't really planned this story out and I'm kind of just doing it on a whim so I don't exactly know where I'm going with it but it's generally what I wish would have happened after Olivia's played Elliot's hooker in Wildlife. I'll disclaim that I don't own any of the characters or anything, just the story line and I can't really say if I'm spoiling any episodes because I don't know exactly what I'm doing yet :D**

**P.S. This is my first story so bear with me!**

**The Wildlife of Zebras on Scorched Earth**

Hazy. Things were so hazy. After a few blinks and head shakes, things started to piece together for him.

Olivia coming to try and save him from Kathy's wrath, then playing hooker when Bushido and Tyborne came to visit.

_"She looked really good. I wonder if she wears black lace all the time..." he thought. "What the hell? I can't think about her like that. Kathy really would leave me if she ever found out."_

Then Bushido putting two slugs in his arm.

_"Damn, I guess that's how I ended up here."_

And finally, Olivia running over to his body, lying paralyzed on the cracked cement yelling frantically "Officer down on the corner of Clarence and Queens Avenue! I repeat,officer down! I need a bus!" and then a softer but more frantic "Elliot? Elliot, can you hear me? Elliot?"as she rubbed soft circles on his temple, softly pleading with him to stay awake.

_"Olivia... Olivia..."_ was all he could think about until his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening.

He turned his head to see his beautiful Olivia walking through the doorway.

_"My beautiful Olivia? What the hell am I thinking? What the hell did they give me?"_ he thought. _"I guess I should talk to her about this before I get myself into trouble."_

"You were supposed to duck." she said, with that cock-eyed smile he loved.

"And you were supposed to leave." Elliot answered.

"Well, when my partner hangs out with scumbags I like to hang around and see what happens."

_"Partner. Right, we're just partners. Maybe I should just forget about it; seems like she has."_ Elliot thought to himself.

"So, what's the plan?" he asked instead.

"Oh, our guys are giving Bushido a little visit as we speak."

It had been almost 6 months since they collared Bushido and Elliot was finally gaining back the full use of his left arm, meaning that he could finally go into the field and do his job without being told to take it easy.

He hated being told to take it easy.

He found the phrase so contradictive seeing how life was far from easy; at least his life was far from easy.

It didn't seem like life to him at all anymore. To him, it seemed more like monotonous routine.

Wake-up.  
Fight with Kathy.  
Go to work.  
Butt heads with Olivia about cases or suspects or theories.  
Spend fifteen minutes in the cribs with his head in his hands trying to get himself to stop thinking about the one thing he wants that he can't have.  
Work some more.  
Go home.  
Fight with Kathy.  
Go to sleep and dream of Olivia.

Repeat.

He was starting to lose perspective on the Olivia situation. He couldn't tell her what he was feeling. He was married for God's sake. She'd never take a married man; she was too moral for that. He should know better than to think his partner would ever reciprocate the feelings he had for her.

He decided for the moment that he was going crazy.

Silently insane.

Continuously battling the thoughts he tried so hard to get out of his head and losing every time he saw her face.

He tried to play it off to himself as a schoolboy crush, but even he couldn't fool himself.

_"I should of talked to her when I had the chance,"_ Elliot thought. _"She's killing me and doesn't even know it."_

It seemed that the Devil himself had been listening to Elliot's conversation with himself because before he could even finish his thought, in walked the drug he'd been longing to take.

The high he wanted to feel.

The sweet release he wanted to taste.

And the only thing he could do about it was stare.

"El...do I have something on my face or are you just enjoying the view?" Olivia said dryly, looking down at her paperwork.

Elliot saw that crooked little half smile that drove him wild grow on her face.

It took everything in him not to jump across the desk right then and release all the emotions he had built up the past six months months in a way so passionate she would melt right into his arms.

But he couldn't.

And he knew it.

So instead, he settled for: "Yeah, you've got a little bit of a milk mustache from the whipped cream on your coffee."

**So this is the first chapter! I think I'm kind of figuring out what I want to do with it now but I'm still not completely sure so please please please leave me some reviews and ideas because I would greatly appreciate it! And don't worry, I plan on y'all hearing from Olivia very soon so Elliot won't be in turmoil for long!**  
**I think some of you die-hards might know where I'm going with the title but hopefully I'll be able to surprise y'all a little! So anyways...review and tell me if you want more! Thanks y'all!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey y'all! I'm really sorry that its been so long since an update but I've had really bad writer's block and it's been a struggle. But, thanks to The Congressman (if you're looking for a really good E/O, check out his story "Prey"), I think I'm finally finding my inspiration again. This is just a little something to tide ya'll over until I figure out what it going to happen next. ***PLEASE REVIEW I NEED ALL THE HELP I CAN GET**

**This is going to pick up right where Chapter 1 left off.**

**I don't own anything and this is going to go for the rest of the chapters as well because I just don't feel like stating the obvious every damn chapter (:**

* * *

Chapter 2

"You could have just said so, no need to creep me out with that longing gaze of yours."

"Where would the fun have been in just telling you?" Elliot said as he shuffled through the paperwork that cluttered his desk.

"Oh, so it was a longing gaze." Olivia couldn't help but smile thinking about the way he looked at her. Lately, the manner in which he did so had turned from something of a subconcious fixation to a look of need. She thought it odd, because Elliot Stabler was not one to need anyone or anything.

"What are you talking about?" Elliot asked her coolly, hoping that she wasn't catching on to his weekness for her.

"Longing gazes are usually something you would deny."

"I must have missed it. I didn't hear you say anything about a longing gaze." he said, fumbling with his computer, trying to focus on something other than the conversation she was trying to hold with him.

"Elliot Stabler missed something? Damn, I thought that was a flying pig I saw this morning but now I'm definitely sure." she said, eyebrows arched and lips curling as she stared straight at him waiting for a response.

She wondered why he'd been so on-edge with her these past few months. He wouldn't look her in the eye for very long, he'd been careful not to have any physical contact with her, and he kept staring at her when he thought she couldn't see him. "If only..." she thought. "but there's no point in getting your hopes up just to watch them crash and burn."

"Smartass."Elliot scoffed, still enthralled in his computer screen. He knew if he looked at her her radiating beauty would melt him into a puddle emotion onto the floor. His feelings for her were growing stronger by the hour and he was losing control of them.

"I can't keep doing this. I have to tell her. I have to tell somebody before I completley combust and it all comes out in the wrong place at the wrong time." he said to himself. "Or the hell I'm living in is just going to keep getting hotter."

The shrill of a telephone ringing cut the tension between the two like a knife and left Elliot thankful for a different distraction.

"Stabler. Yeah. Mmmhmm. Uh-huh. Okay, I'm on my way."

"Who was that?" Olivia asked.

"O'Halloran. Says he's got something for me at the lab about the Harrison case. You want to come?"

"Nah, I'd like to get this paper work done so I can have an actual lunch break today. I think I'll hang here."

"Alright, see ya later." Elliot said as he walked out of the squad room.

"Thank God." he muttered as he unlocked the driver's side door of the 2002 Ford Taurus and entered into traffic on his way to the lab.

* * *

_an hour later..._

Olivia had finally put the last of her DD5's that had previously consumed her desk into the filing cabinet and sat down to take a breath. As she leaned back in her slightly uncomfortble polyester desk chair and let out a sigh, she realized that her stomach was growling ferociously.

She took a look around the squad room wondering why Elliot wasn't back yet.

After scanning the room thoroughly, she picked up her Blackberry and pressed his speed dial number.

_ring, ring, ring_

"Hey, Liv!"

"Stuckey? Where is Elliot?"

"Oh, he stepped out for sushi with O'Halloran. Left his phone on the desk! Big dummy."

"Oh, okay..well how about the DNA?"

"Hasn't popped yet."

"Alright..tell El to call me when he gets back."

"Sure thing! Bye Liv!"

The phone line went dead, leaving Olivia accompanied by only a nagging feeling in her stomach that something was wrong.

* * *

Olivia was worried. For what reason, she didn't know.

"Elliot is having lunch with O'Halloran...he's fine. He's fine. But sushi? And Stuckey?" she thought.

Something just wasn't sitting right with her about the entire was so odd to her that she was being sidetracked by such a simple and normal thing. She just couldn't put her finger on it...

She'd spent the better part of an hour opening her desk drawer and grabbing her keys and purse then after a few seconds shoving them back in deciding that she was staying put.

"Benson, what are you doing?" Don Cragen's strong voice sounded from his office in the far side of the noticed a wild and worried look in her eye when she glanced his way.

"Going to lunch." she replied, as she grabbed her things out of her desk for the final time and turned, walking out of the squad room.

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed it. Please review for my sake, they really are important to the writers. I like to know what ya'll are thinking so that I can incorporate your ideas into the story. They also give me an idea of whether anyone likes it or not b/c I don't really want to spend my time writing something that no one wants to read or will enjoy. I appreciate every review given and please keep them coming! Chap. 3 should not take as long as this one because I think I know what I'm doing now but I STILL WANT YOUR FEED BACK! Thank you kindly.**

**Much love,**  
**CG**


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